Cyber Mummies

(be gentle, this was written in about an hour on the train this AM. ¬†I just learned about #flashfriday yesterday (thursday) and wanted to join in)

David sat on the couch. The television was on but he was reading the funnies from the newspaper while scratching behind Zena‚Äôs ears while she struggled to occupy as much of his lap a possible.

The noise served to distract him, as did reading the comics. His girlfriend has left him recently so he was trying to avoid thinking about anything as much as possible. She hadn‚Äôt broken up, just left. Moved to a different state.

She had come by, told him of her plans, hugged him, kissed him, said see you later and drove away. She didn‚Äôt ask him to come, and she didn‚Äôt tell him where she was going other than another state. It wasn‚Äôt that she avoided telling him, it just had somehow never come up.

As a result of his efforts everything was serving it‚Äôs purpose. The TV, AC, comics and Zena‚Äôs wiggling had kept him distracted for the better part of 10 minutes.

The piercing beep that started coming in from outside also distracted him. But it mostly distracted him from his distractions. Annoyed he grabbed the remote and punched the button to increase the volume.

In defiance the beeping increased it‚Äôs volume as well.

Grumpily David forced himself off the couch and went over to the window and closed it. The AC had been on for the noise, and he casually reached over and turn the fan up louder.

He stood there staring out the window in utter disbelief. In front of him was a truck. A big red rig with a flatbed. The truck itself wasn‚Äôt unusual, but the fact that it was in his driveway and backing up was.

He made his way down the hall to the back door trying to figure out what could possibly be happening. ¬†He quickly thought of everything he might have ordered over the last couple of months, none of which seemed to require a truck this size to be delivered. He hadn‚Äôt ordered a hot tub or swimming pool or a new anything really.

David walked out the door with his head down deep in thought and barely saw Zena dash past him and leap down the porch steps, missing them all. At the bottom of the stairs he turned left to look at the truck, raised his head and stopped dead in his tracks.

There, in the reflection of the side mirror he saw the driver. Or what should have been the driver. Instead a gold face with two black spots in the area where the eyes should be, and a black strip running down the center of the face stared back. Carefully he turned his head and, for the first time, saw the figure on the back of the flatbed standing near what appeared to be a giant gold and black rectangle.

The figure had the same black and gold face, as well as a golden body with black accents in various places. The thing that most drew his attention was the what the figure was wearing: golden bandages wrapped around his body like a mummy.

David continued turning his head and saw yet another figure. This one was practically identical to the second except he was standing in Davids vegetable garden. Or more correctly it was straddling the fence that cordoned off the garden from the rest of the yard.

‚ÄúExcuse me,‚Äù said David finally, ‚Äúwhat exactly is going on?‚Äù

‚ÄúGnuh.‚Äù replied the figure straddling the garden fence.

‚ÄúWhat? What did you say?‚Äù

‚ÄúGnuuh!‚Äù

‚ÄúLook, I can‚Äôt understand a word you are saying but could you please get out of my garden?‚Äù

‚ÄúGar. Den.‚Äù

‚ÄúYes, garden. The thing your almost standing in. What are you? You look kind of like a mummy but your not human. Robot maybe?‚Äù

‚ÄúGnuh.‚Äù replied the garden mummy as he pointed to the box on the trailer.

‚ÄúGnuh,‚Äù he said again as he pointed to the garden.

‚ÄúYou want to put that thing in my garden?‚Äù

The garden mummy nodded.

‚ÄúNo chance! Thats‚Äô my vegetable garden!‚Äù

‚ÄúFFFoooood.‚Äù replied the garden mummy.

‚ÄúFood. Yes, that is food.‚Äù

Suddenly the mummy on the trailer leaped to the ground which a huge thud. David jumped and stepped back as it walked over to the garden mummy and stood in front of it. It began emitting beeps and whistles and flashed some kind of light for a few seconds then turned to David.

‚ÄúWe are Cybex.‚Äù

‚ÄúCybex? What is that, some kind of nationality?‚Äù

‚ÄúWe are Cybex. We are not from this planet.‚Äú

‚ÄúWait… what? Aliens? From another planet?‚Äù

The second mummy nodded.

‚ÄúAliens from another world that look like robot mummies? Aliens from another world that look like robot mummies standing in my vegetable garden? Aliens from another world that look like robot mummies standing in my vegetable garden trying to bury a giant box? Wait, wait wait…‚Äù

‚ÄúSarcophagus.‚Äù

‚ÄúWhat?‚Äù

‚ÄúSarcophagus.‚Äù

‚ÄúWhat?‚Äù

‚ÄúAliens from another world that look like robot mummies standing in your vegetable garden trying to bury a sarcophagus.‚Äù

David put his hands to his head and covered his eyes and shook his head and sat down. Meeting aliens would have been bad enough on it‚Äôs own, but meeting aliens named Cybex who were trying to bury a sarcophagus in his garden was a bit much. He had just had breakfast, it was too early for complicated thoughts.

Slowly he stood, took a deep breath, wasn‚Äôt too sure he enjoyed it and let it back out rapidly through his mouth. He glanced at each of the three mummies in turnt.

Okay. First things first, how can you speak english?‚Äù

‚ÄúAssimilated from listening to you speak‚Äù

‚ÄúOkay. Second question, why are you trying to bury a sarcophagus in my garden filled with your food?‚Äù

‚ÄúNot our food.‚Äù

‚ÄúHuh? You said it was food.‚Äù

‚ÄúYes, food for the plants.‚Äù

‚ÄúFor the… you mean like fertilizer?‚Äù

‚ÄúFertilizer. Yes, it is fertilizer.‚Äù

‚ÄúOkay, fertilizer. But why my garden?‚Äù

‚ÄúIt was there.‚Äù

David stared with his mouth slightly open. Shocked. Or surprised. Either worked.

‚ÄúLet me get the straight. You, a bunch of aliens from another planet, want to bury a sarcophagus full of plant fertilizer in my vegetable garden, just because it‚Äôs there?‚Äù

‚ÄúYes.‚Äù

David stared again. He thought about all the possible options. One, let them. Two, don‚Äôt let them. That pretty much exhausted all the options he could think of at the moment.

He glanced between the mummies in the garden and the sarcophagus on the trailer and back again.

Then repeated it several times while rubbing his chin with his right hand.

Then repeated it several more times without rubbing his chin.

He stopped glancing and looked straight at the second mummy he had seen, the one that had done most of the talking and said:

15 Responses

I like the concept – very cute for spur of the moment. I like the pacing in the first part – you provide description but move it along well. The dialogue got a bit bogged down for me, but i'm not sure if it can totally be avoided due to the language barriers. Maybe you could have some sort of tie-in between the fleeing girlfriend and either the arrival of the aliens or what they're trying to bury. It's cute, though, well done! This week is my first #fridayflash, too! :-)

I love the concept, and the way you describe the narrator's reactions and emotions. He doesn't react as you'd expect, but then this highlights that there can't really be any standard expectations in this situation!

I think this will be an excellent piece once you've edited it – damn good effort for a spur of the moment story.

Thanks for sharing. I'd love to see the final piece too if you get a chance to post it.

Great last line. What else would you do, faced with Cyber Mummies with a work order. I like the playfulness of this piece, impressive for being a quick piece of work. Welcom to #fridayflash and look forward to seeing more of your work.

That clinched it for me. It made the whole insanity of it work perfectly. Things happen, because they just happen – up to and including aliens burying plant food in your vegetable garden because it's there.

Cute idea. Could certainly use a bit of editing and typo correction, then it would be really tight. A few times you used your when you should have used you're – it's a common mistake, but one that you should really look out for. For some reason, things like that stand out more than regular typos. I want to know now if his vegetables improved or not!